If It's Monday - This Must Be Chongqing!

By 5:00 AM this morning (we're exactly 12 hours ahead of the folks back home) 10 families were sitting on the bus motoring our way to the Beijing airport. The streets were mostly deserted as this is the third day of the 3 day Moon Festival Holiday in China. It was kind of neat seeing the city in a more laid back posture but you can be sure that by the time the sun was up - so would be Beijing!

Getting through security at the airport went smooth enough. The biggest thing to remember is that certain parts of the world don't quite queue up the way some of us do. In other words, just because you happen to be first in line doesn't mean someone isn't going to just walk up and stand in front of you. It's different but once you catch on to what's happening it's pretty easy to deal with :)

The 2 hours plus flight to Chongqing (chung - chin) left on time and arrive on time. No hassles, no surprises. Aly and I sat next to "Jerry". I would give his Chinese name but believe me, it's better I give you the English name he goes by. Jerry suggested I call him Jerry after agreeing it was evident I was not going to be able to properly pronounce his Chinese name. Cool guy.

A very surreal moment occurred while sitting on the tarmac. The music to the John Lennon song Imagine began playing over the plane intercom system prior to takeoff. Aly and I each shared a private moment on that one. A flood of emotions hit us. Imagine Alyzabeth An... It's Easy If You Try...

Upon arrival in Chongqing we were met by our CCAI guides, Marie and Anita. You would not believe the packet each family received from Marie. She has already contacted the orphanages where our children are and has asked most of the questions we would have been asking the nannies tomorrow and gave us their responses neatly typed out. She already had our hotel room keys and had us registered. She gave us a typed list of each family (including the name of their child) in our group and what room they would be staying in. We received a handy "translation" list of questions, phrases, etc in Chinese and English so if we want to we can simply point on the paper when out and about. We have name tags explaining where we are staying and why we are here and why we are pushing around and fussing over our Asian babies. We have a checklist for what we need each day to complete the adoption: Money, gifts, documents, etc...
I'm telling you - Marie is way organized and we were all blown away with how helpful and thoughtful all of this is to us. She also gave us a quick walking tour of the area pointing out different shops, grocery stores, restaurants, STARBUCKS! And she arranged to have our dirty laundry picked up today with delivery for tomorrow!! The lady is awesome!!!
Thank You Marie!!!

Our hotel is nice, The Golden Resources. We're on the 28th floor - quite the view :) Beneath the hotel is an underground mall that is open 24 hours a day. It has discos, grocery stores, clothing stores, well you get the idea. We toured through with Marie and Anita and then had dinner there tonight. Love the spicy food here! Check out the dude pouring the tea in the video.
We didn't expect to attract too much attention in coming to Chongqing since it is such a large city (over 33 million people) but we are. Aly is attracting major attention. I think it may have something to do with her curly blond hair :) She stands out like a sore thumb :) Marie tells us that Chongqing and the surrounding rural population is not that familiar with foreigners . The people have been super nice and more than a few have tried out their English on us.

Well, we're going to hit the sack early tonight. Hopefully we'll each get a good nights sleep. We did purchase an inexpensive stroller today for Alyzabeth since we will be here for a full week and because she is a toddler. We can "borrow" free ones in GZ but we're not in GZ. Don't know that this stroller will make it home with us but if not, it will have served its purpose well. We also picked up a couple of toys for her to play with.
We meet our Alyzabeth An tomorrow around 2:00 PM. Her orphanage is one of the closer ones to Chongqing being only 2 hours away. One of the little ones in our group has an 11 hour bus ride to get to the hotel. Bless her heart.

Gotta go... We are super tired. Wonder why? :) Thanks for your prayers and well wishes and COMMENTS! They keep us going!!
Another rough, no frills added video has been included with this post :)
peace
ac & fm